Moonglotexas”Truth’s Table” is a collaboration, Ekemini Uwan, Christina Edmondson and Michelle Higgins each write essays on key topics facing, especially but not limited to, black women in the United States. I was invited by the publisher to review this book and I was honoured to read it. I anticipated gaining wisdom into the lives of women’s shoes I can never walk in as a white woman, I knew it would be insightful. I didn’t realise how much I would relate to, how seen I would feel in it and how much I would be able to apply to my life.
This book is brutal, gentle, opinionated, unifying depending on the topic, the writer and the reader’s feelings on….its wonderfully diverse and entirely challenging! What it isn’t is sugar-coating, shy or holding anything back. It’s straight-talking approach is refreshing.
Trauma is intrusive, obstructive, and all-consuming; depending on what kind of trauma you are dealing with, it can warp your view of God and the faith altogether. Trauma is so loud that it can impair our ability to discern truth from lies, which prevents us from disentangling white supremacy from the faith. I cannot stress this enough, because some people are decolonizing their faith to the point that they are decolonizing their way out of the faith.
It is broken into three major parts: love; life; and liberation. Within each are four essays. Life covers Colorism, Protest, Discipleship and Forgiveness. Love talks about Singleness, Divorce, Marriage and the Church. Liberation speaks to Justice, Resisting, God’s Kingdom and Dispora Dreams. Each of these is discussed using the authors” stories, their experiences as well as their knowledge and expertise as a theologian, educator and organiser.
If you are looking for a captivating, mind-set shifting, relatable and challenging book, pick this one up! It’s a five out of five on the enJOYment scale, and highly recommended!
From back cover:
A collection of essays and stories documenting the lived theology and spirituality we need to hear in order to lean into a more freeing, loving, and liberating faith—from the hosts of the beloved Truth’s Table podcast
“The liberating work of Truth’s Table creates breathing room to finally have those conversations we’ve been needing to have.”—Morgan Harper Nichols, artist and poet
Once upon a time, an activist, a theologian, and a psychologist walked into a group chat. Everything was laid out on the table: Dating. Politics. The Black church. Pop culture. Soon, other Black women began pulling up chairs to gather round. And so, the Truth’s Table podcast was born.
In their literary debut, co-hosts Christina Edmondson, Michelle Higgins, and Ekemini Uwan offer stories by Black women and for Black women examining theology, politics, race, culture, and gender matters through a Christian lens. For anyone seeking to explore the spiritual dimensions of hot-button issues within the church, or anyone thirsty to deepen their faith, Truth’s Table provides exactly the survival guide we need, including:
• Michelle Higgins’s unforgettable treatise revealing the way “racial reconciliation” is a spiritually bankrupt, empty promise that can often drain us of the ability to do real justice work
• Ekemini Uwan’s exploration of Blackness as the image of God in the past, present, and future
• Christina Edmondson’s reimagination of what a more just and liberating form of church discipline might look like—one that acknowledges and speaks to the trauma in the room
These essays deliver a compelling theological re-education and pair the spiritual formation and political education necessary for Black women of faith.
